


Family Ties

by Harukami



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 05:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ren finds Sei while he's dreaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Ties

Usually Ren picks up the tail end of Aoba's dreams, hears Aoba's voice and sees Aoba's ordinary thoughts tangled up in images, a loose flow of non-reality. He has his own dreams sometimes, too, though they tangle with Aoba's more often than not, feed off each other, until some mornings they can wake up and fill in the missing details from each other's dreams, like some strange play-acting where each of them has only half the script. 

So, the first time that it happens takes him by surprise. He's particularly tired that day; he and Aoba had gone for a walk and ended up running and one thing had lead to another -- by the time he got home and, of course, when they got home, Tae wanted help setting the table, and there was dinner, and by the time they actually get to bed he feels like his limbs are made of lead and the effort of trying to move his face like a human being's is exhausting almost to the point of tears. Aoba laughs at him lightly, kisses his forehead, says "Good night, Ren" and his eyelids close like they are weighted, like there are weights attached to them, caught in his soul and dragging it down into darkness as soon as he closes them.

He splashes down into water at the edge of a beach and spends a moment just enjoying it, the cool breeze, the almost blindingly brilliant glitter of light off the water. The heat rolling off the sand and the coldness of the water combine into a rough sensory moment, neither good nor bad but just strong, memorable. And then he hears, from behind him, "Ren."

Ren turns, expecting -- what? Aoba, of course, either other part of Aoba, but it's neither of them. Sei is sprawled out on the sand. He's stripped down to the waist -- it feels odd to look at him; Ren's spent so long himself gazing at this body in the mirror and trying to understand it, trying to make it feel like his own and himself not some possessor demon living quietly in someone else's skin -- and is just spread out as if to absorb the warmth of the sand through his limbs. Sei smiles at Ren without getting up, head turned slightly to the side.

"Brother," Ren says. And then, "I thought..."

"It's not that Aoba failed Scrap," Sei says, gently, over Ren's sudden, panicked concern. He sits up slowly, peacefully, sand sliding away from him in a light, pale shower. "I am free and any part of me can leave and stay away whenever I wish."

Ren shakes his head slowly. "I don't understand. We never thought we'd see you again." Though he has felt Sei. If he thinks about it, he does have to acknowledge it. A vague sense of Sei's presence, distant and asleep. It's been a strange thought, both comforting and discomfiting at the same time.

Sei holds out a hand, more a symbolic gesture than a literal one, though Ren takes it literally, folds it in his somewhat broader one -- he almost always finds himself in his old online form when he dreams -- and lets Sei pull him down so they're sitting together. 

"Simply speaking," Sei murmurs, a small, almost shy smile lingering on his lips as he tucks some hair behind an ear, "I just... Aoba said he wanted us to live together. That was his wish, not destroying me. So... Leaving a small sliver of myself behind was... I don't mind it. I won't force you out, of course. This is your home now, not mine. But I thought perhaps you were used enough to another consciousness sharing your space that you might not be troubled by it."

Ren feels himself go white, then red. Sei really is living in his own body with Ren... "I'm...sorry..." he gets out, in a miserable tone.

Sei tilts his head, looking genuinely confused. Well, it isn't as if Sei can read his mind; even if they are sharing this space, it's not as if they are one being. "Why are you sorry for _me_ leaving a piece here...?"

"Your body, I--" He can't admit to it, can't get it out, but feels his cheeks going steadily hotter and hotter, redder and redder. "Aoba and I..."

"Ah," Sei says, and then starts to laugh a little. He seems almost surprised by the sound, putting two fingers to his own lips as he laughs. "Please. Don't apologize."

"But... we're your..." Ren swallows. "Your brother."

"Surely that isn't the most memorable part of this."

He felt so embarrassed that he could sink into the sand and be swallowed up and not spare a moment to regret it. "Aoba is your brother, and I am your brother, and we have been using your body for..."

"Well, I did give it to you," Sei says, easily. "As a way for you to express your love. I found your story really romantic. The part of Aoba who isn't Aoba, who loves Aoba, who wants to protect Aoba, who has never been able to touch Aoba... My body isn't much of a gift, but it was the only blessing I could offer."

He knows -- they both have known -- when they decided to go forward, that it had most likely been Sei's intention. There was no other reasonable explanation for Sei calling Ren into his body, but it's impossible not to feel a little horrified anyway, a little like even if it's obvious, they'd gone and inflicted incest on him before receiving any kind of verbal permission. It had been justifiable when Sei was gone, dead to any physical reality. Even receiving that permission now, thinking about Sei being here at all for it... talking to him now just makes that darkness creep in at the edges of his vision, in the pit of his stomach. "But--"

"Ren," Sei says, fondly. "I was born entirely to be a tool to manipulate and harm others. My body has been used for more depravities than I could name. If it can bring happiness to the life of the person -- the people -- who I wish to love more than anything else in the world, I couldn't be happier."

Ren swallows; it's silly to think of a lump in his throat when he's in his old online body, but he can feel it there regardless. "Brother..."

Sei leans over and presses a kiss to his mouth. It's not sexual, just a dry, warm brush of lips over his, an expression of love. "I'm tired," he says. "I'm going to sleep more, but someday, if you want me to, I can say these things to Aoba as well. But I wanted to see you."

"Brother," Ren says again, and lifts a hand to Sei's cheek around a sudden sense of anxiety. "What--"

"Good night, Ren," Sei says, and Ren is swept away into a whirl of water and sand and air and dragged into the flow of Aoba's dreams, and when they wake up later, Aoba turns to him and suggests they compare dreams like usual, and Ren bursts into tears and holds Aoba close to him, feeling the weight of his body in his arms, pressing kisses over his face, touching him.


End file.
